Ryan, Republicans grapple with alternative to Obama budget

WASHINGTON - The new boss of the House is confronting the same tea party challenges as his predecessor.

Speaker Paul Ryan is scrambling to avoid an embarrassing fiscal defeat this year in the face of a hard-right conservative revolt over last fall's spending-and-tax plan.

The same conservatives who forced John Boehner (BAY'-nur) out as speaker are making life difficult for Ryan. They're signaling they will refuse to vote for an upcoming GOP budget plan that endorses the higher spending numbers carried over from last year.

The Wisconsin Republican has built a congressional career as the Republican Party's budget savant, but Ryan is perhaps in his career's most difficult bind as he tries to engineer passage of an alternative to President Barack Obama's $4.1 trillion budget that he sent to Congress on Tuesday.